December 1, 2003

What About Catherine?

It would be easy assume that Cinecultist's singular taste sprung free-form from the head of Zeus or something. But even CC has to build on the filmography, over time ticking off the classics, finally watching some films that even we're surprised we've never seen. François Truffaut's Jules et Jim is one such movie that had been on the Cinecultist Netflix queue for a while now and we finally sat down to watch this weekend.

Although now that we've seen it, what might Cinecultist say about it? As a classic of the French New Wave, there's no shortage of criticism on it and no small amount of fetishization by worshippers of the European art cinema cannon. If you haven't seen it, CC can't really tell you to run out and watch it, because you probably already know you should. Even to post the above still from the film is besides the point, you've seen this image before and are familiar with this picture standing for a particularly joyous moment recorded on film. All of this makes CC begin to question whether it's even possible to have a real personal communion with these types of movies after all that's been said and thought about them before. Other than to say, "everyone is right, that's a pretty good movie." So there you are, Jules and Jim a pretty good movie. All the hype about Truffy? Well deserved. You heard it here first folks, remember that.